
Oass__ilEAML 
Book.J-A^ 



CopiglitN - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Helps to 
Profitable 
Paper Selling 



Helpful hints, original observations, 
and salient suggestions, as to where, 
when, and how to sell PAPER. 



CHICAGO 

THE PAPER TRADE 

1904 



Two Copies Heca.'vbd 

JAN 30 1905 
Copyngm tfliry 

Jos*. 2.3. t^oS- 
iutSS (\s AXc No-. 

COPY B. 



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FOREWORD. 

This book is intended to be helpful to such 
persons as are considering starting in the job- 
bing paper business. 

It is assumed that the essentials of experi- 
ence, capital and force of character are pos- 
sessed by the prospective dealer. 

Force of character, "backbone," is today 
needed in greater ratio than perhaps the other 
two necessary factors. 

Business methods have radically changed 
during the past twenty-five years. Yet the old 
fashioned qualities of honesty, industry and 
prudence are still as fundamental for making 
any permanent success. 

Shorter credits in buying, smaller margins 
in selling, keener business competition and 
more critical customers all tend to make the 
business extremely strenuous. 

In offset to this is the immensely enlarged 
field, the steady evolution in paper uses from 



4 FOREWORD. 

luxuries to necessities of life, and the more 
profitable appreciation of the dealer who does 
things extremely well or different from the 
average .way. 

Big capital has not preempted the jobbing 
business, even in the larger cities, despite the 
pessimistic words of some writers, while 
throughout the great and wealthy nation there 
are hundreds of prosperous communities 
where the right man can start as a paper 
dealer in the right way and gradually but 
surely build up a snug and safe business, 
profitable alike to the town and himself. Hon- 
est men with fair ability, a willingness to 
work and a little capital are wanted every- 
where. The glad hand is reaching out for 
them as never before in the world's history. 

There is no real secret of success besides 
the old, old story of persistent, intelligent 
effort. 

This little work is not intended as a text 
book. The chapters deal in a common sense 
way with the problems of actual experience as 
they arise today under new modern condi- 
tions. 

It is not for kindergarten use. The points 



FOREWORD. 5 

made are but suggestions for intelligent 
readers. 

In what is written some may find much that 
is old, yet this very reiteration of old truths 
will emphasize the importance of the basic 
principles of systematic business. 

The get-rich-quick concerns and their vic- 
tims ignore these foundation stones of mer- 
cantile life and always with consequent sor- 
row to the latter. If you are willing to> profit 
by the experience of one who paid dearly for 
his knowledge these words may serve to make 
the selling of paper for you both pleasurable 
and profitable. 



CONTENTS 



I. Starting in the Paper Business 
II. Buying the Stock 

III. Arranging a Store and Office 

IV. System Absolutely Essential 
V. Keeping Accounts Straight 

VI. Advertising an Investment, not 

an Expense 
VII. Credits and Collections . 
VIII. Handling Help 

IX. Educating and Handling Cus- 
tomers .... 
X. How to Treat Competitors 
XI. Kickers and How to Cure Them 
XII. Letter Writing a Profitable 
Privilege . 

XIII. Value of Two Per Cent. — Pay 

as You Go 

XIV. Getting in a Rut 
XV. Selling for Cash 

XVI. Losing Your Grip 
XVII. Spreading Out . 
XVIII. Executive Ability Required 
XIX. An Aim in Life 
XX. Strictly Private 
XXI. Patience, Progress and Pros- 
perity 



9 
16 

22 
27 

3 2 

36 
41 
46 

5° 
55 
60 

63 

68 
7i 
75 
78 
82 
86 
90 
94 

99 



Copyright, J. Fred Waggoner, 1904 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 
PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER I. 

STARTING IN THE PAPER BUSINESS. 

If you have decided to embark in the job- 
bing paper trade it is assumed that technical 
experience, enthusiasm and a fair cash capital 
are parts of your equipment. 

The amount of necessary capital depends so 
largely upon circumstances that advice here 
would not be valuable except to say that even 
a modest business should rarely be started 
without $4,000 to $5,000 as a minimum. 

It should be noted that short credits are 
now the rule among mill men and the new 
customer who does not take his discounts is 
likely to stand less favorably with them than 
the cash buyer, other points being equal. 



10 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

Probably one-third of all mercantile failures 
in the United States are caused directly by 
lack of capital; insufficient in starting, insuf- 
ficient to carry the business until sales money 
can be collected, insufficient to satisfy the 
sheriff should he call. At least 15 to 20 per 
cent of the proposed investment should be 
retained in bank as working capital. 

The question of partnership will always be 
a mooted one. 

If a man has confidence in his own energy, 
industry and a fair ability for both financier- 
ing and selling goods, the best experience of 
those in the trade favors "going it alone." 
Later he can take in a partner, and to far bet- 
ter advantage when he has established a trade 
and good will. 

Business partnerships are much like domes- 
tic ones, and should not be entered into any 
more lightly. It is frequently better to give 
a good bookkeeper and office man a working 
interest than to chance the waste of time, loss 
of temper and the friction involved by un- 
satisfactory partnerships. These are days 
when most successful results are obtained by 
the "one man power" idea. 

The small jobber in a small city and with 



PAPER SELLING. 11 

a somewhat narrow field will find that a con- 
siderable part of his trade will be really of a 
retail character, especially if his stock is se- 
lected as suggested in the subsequent chapter. 
This fact will prove, however, an advantage 
to the beginner, if he handles such customers 
with tact and courtesy. 

There are instances within the knowledge 
of the writer where a stock of goods was 
actually bought and held pending the selection 
of a business location. In this case the result 
was favorable, yet as a rule the choice of a 
town is the first thing to think of after settling 
the financial question. 

Traveling salesmen who cover the whole 
country for kindred lines, such as printing ma- 
chinery, frequently have knowledge of desira- 
ble locations for a paper house. Trade jour- 
nals generally keep in touch with matters of 
this kind. The Paper Trade of Chicago 
would probably be glad to give any informa- 
tion in their possession helpful to seekers after 
a good town in which to establish a store. 

The traveling paper salesman himself is one 
who most naturally expects to embark in busi- 
ness on his own account. Frequently he does 
do so, sometimes failing to win success chiefly 



12 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

from lack of gauging aright the importance of 
the office end of the business. He can sell the 
goods, but 

The man and his methods are therefore 
more important than the best location or large 
capital. A systematic, industrious man with 
a sane, sunny temperament, will win out al- 
most anywhere. The cheerful man has a cre- 
ative power unknown to the pessimist. 

Such an one attracts success and is a com- 
pelling force, hypnotizing all whom he meets. 

Personal acquaintance and popularity are 
valuable assets and may well be utilized if 
conditions favor starting in your own city. If 
this be a large one, however, and your capital 
modest, then a smaller town will present more 
advantages, even to a stranger, owing to less 
severe competition and lighter running ex- 
penses. 

Recent statistics prove that the south is now 
relatively more prosperous than any other sec- 
tion of the Union, but it is as yet too sparsely 
settled, has too few trade centers or a suffi- 
cient number of reading people to make it at- 
tractive for a paper man, whatever great oppor- 
tunities it may hold for other lines of business. 
The marvelous advance in wealth and culture 



PAPER SELLING. 



made by the middle west states has brought a 
greater demand for all kinds of paper. With 
leisure and wealth comes a desire to read ; peo- 
ple find new wants. This affects the demand 
even for wrapping papers. More things are 
wanted. More articles are now wrapped in 
paper tenfold than was the case fifteen years 
ago. The retired farmer, now so much in 
evidence, from Ohio to Kansas and Nebraska, 
has become, with his family, a large buying 
factor in the paper line. 

We read so much about the growth of the 
west that we sometimes overlook the dense 
population and inherited wealth conditions of 
the eastern states. True, paper houses are 
also plentiful there, yet some of them are so 
conservative by environment as to make the 
field inviting for live men who can create and 
hold trade. 

One of the best informed men in the paper 
business recently said that he thought Wash- 
ington and Oregon presented especially good 
opportunities. He had formed this opinion by 
personal investigation and because of a belief 
in the growth of Alaska and the future of the 
Orient trade, which must tend to the steady 
prosperity of our whole Pacific coast. 



14 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

The question, then, of a good location be- 
comes an interesting problem for individual 
solution. Few persons would chose a city 
declining in population, or even one at a stand- 
still. 

The town being selected, the location in the 
place is important. As the trade has to be 
sought under any conditions, a store on a main 
street is not essential. Good light, ventila- 
tion and abundant room are necessities. Fre- 
quently a lot owner can be found willing to 
put up a modest building for a good tenant 
on a long lease. A modern one or two story 
structure could thus be had at low rent, and 
built in a way to economize handling stock. 
Such a building would bring plenty of free 
advertising if the local press was handled 
right. A corner might be secured with all 
the advantages for advertising the business 
and shipping goods. If you are locating in 
a new town, study well the place and people. 
Keep your own counsel as to finances and 
plans. Cultivate modesty of manner and 
statement. Let your friends advertise your 
greatness. Be loyal to the town. Know the 
local newspaper men from the start, yet don't 
talk too much to them. At this juncture, 



PAPER SELLING. 15 

especially, give your own business the prefer- 
ence. Ride your hobbies away from the office, 
for .you have need now of your best undivided 
attention in getting well started in the paper 
trade. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER II. 



BUYING THE STOCK. 



The words of this book are not likely to 
interest the heavy capitalist, but may be help- 
ful to the man with a few thousands who must 
make his dollars go a long ways. 

In freshening up his own knowledge of 
paper buying, the writer has talked with 
scores of paper men, manufacturers, jobbers, 
salesmen, bookers, retailers and others of life- 
long experience. Some of them dwelt upon 
the reasons for their success, a few talked of 
their failures, but none of them laid stress 
upon the importance of right buying. Not 
one quoted the old saw, "Goods well bought 
are half sold." 

The fact is, buying to-day is more easily 
done than it was fifteen years ago, when larger 
stocks were carried and when a large part of 
the buying was done during two months of 
the year. The live jobber now reads the trade 



PAPER SELLING. 17 

papers and visits the mills. He studies the 
conditions of the manufacturing and distrib- 
uting markets. The dealer is not obliged to 
go to headquarters to buy ; although he would 
consult his own interests if he did so more 
frequently. The salesmen come to your of- 
fice, and it is here that some of the buyer's 
talent is needed. A good buyer must be some- 
what of a judge of human nature, as well as of 
paper, for the travelers include many different 
kinds of men. As a rule, they are bright, hon- 
est fellows, fertile in ideas, who will use any 
fair means to sell you a carload of paper, but 
occasionally you will strike some one who 
will stoop to anything to make a sale. It is a 
good business to encourage these traveling 
salesmen, whether you are in the market or 
not. They are an observing lot and the 
chances are nine to ten that you can learn 
something from each one of them. 

The writer asked one veteran paper maker 
how much paper a man with $5,000 cash could 
buy, and he answered $15,000 worth. Putting 
the question personally, he added that if he 
had that amount to start with he would buy 
$1,000 for cash, $2,500 on credit and hold the 
balance for bargains, working expenses and 



18 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

contingencies. He was of the opinion that the 
present offered as great, if not greater oppor- 
tunities for the industrious man to go into 
business than ever before. 

With a moderate capital, a man would do 
well to buy at first chiefly coarse papers, 
wrapping, strawboard, bags, toilet paper, 
twine, etc., and locate in a town of say 20,000 
people. From this center he could also grad- 
ually cover a radius of about twenty miles. 

In this way his small capital would go much 
further, a trade with dealers in every line could 
be built up, even though the sales were indi- 
vidually small. To wrapping papers he might 
add wooden ware, such as pie plates, skewers, 
toothpicks and specialties in paper, like oyster 
and ice cream pails, also wooden spoons, towel 
rollers, rolling pins, chopping bowls, bread 
boards and a host of small articles of this 
kind. 

If wise, he should not attempt at first to 
keep flat papers or ruled stock for printers' 
use, as being a distinct branch of the trade 
and one that would not justify him in tying up 
his capital. He might put in a little low-price 
flat stock paper retailing at about eight cents 
a pound, and some envelopes that would sell 



PAPER SELLING. 19 

to others besides printers, and by supplying 
temporary wants of the latter gradually work 
up a trade in the finer papers, if conditions 
tended to that end. 

Some years ago a big Chicago house failed. 
An excellent bookkeeper in their employ found 
himself with shattered health and without 
money enough to buy a new hat. He managed 
to get transportation to Denver, where he 
vainly sought employment. Finally he secured 
a trifling consignment of wrapping papers, 
leased a 7 x 9 wareroom, sold the goods, de- 
livered them first from his back, soon from 
a push cart. Inside of a year he was making 
more than a living, owned a good delivery 
wagon, and in four years had built up an im- 
mense trade, necessitating five teams and all 
else in proportion. A dozen true stories of 
like character came to the writer in his search 
for practical points. All who started modestly 
with coarse papers as a basis, and who were 
industrious and good managers, had won out. 

Seemingly the jobber should buy direct of 
the mills or their selling agents, but here again 
the merchant must judge for himself. An ac- 
quaintance with mill owners and a close knowl- 
edge of how their product is marketed would 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



suggest at least a visit to manufacturing cen- 
ters. The tendency, however, of most mills is 
to discourage the new small jobber and to 
refer him to the larger jobber, who will usually 
sell him as close, if not closer, than the mill 
man. Sales are being daily made in which 
one jobber sells to another on margins of 2 
and 3 per cent advance. In such cases, of 
course the big jobber never sees or handles 
the paper. 

The writer has known an instance within 
the past eighteen months where a small job- 
bing house has started, buying nothing from 
first hands and yet has made good money. In 
this case competitors who bought direct could 
not touch some round orders owing to their 
goods really costing them more. 

More liberal credit and other favors can 
frequently be had of the big jobbing house. 

Briefly summed up, the buyer with wide" 
knowledge of stock, mills and men ought to 
save money by buying direct, and no time 
spent in an endeavor to reach this result will 
be wasted. The buyer without these ad- 
vantages, might at first get most of his stock 
and buying experience of the big dealers in the 
larger cities. 



PAPER SELLING. 21 

He can make a fair profit under either 
method. To sell and immediately deliver a 
few bundles of paper to the grocer, butcher, 
druggist or tailor will not be found difficult. 
The convenience of it and the fact of keeping 
the money in the home town will all tend 
to steadily build up a trade if the place and 
man are both right. 

In the buying end of the business, knowl- 
edge is power and no man can afford to neg- 
lect any means for adding to his knowledge 
of prices and market conditions. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER III. 

ARRANGING STORE AND OFFICE. 

It has been elsewhere suggested that a low 
rent might be obtained by getting a lot owner 
to build a store for you on property a block 
or more away from the main business street. 

The prudent man, however, may not care 
to tie himself up with a long lease, for long 
leases in a small city are not always negoti- 
able. Occasionally an occupied store can be 
secured by offering the tenant a small bonus 
for vacating. Such a cash proposition is often 
very tempting to small dealers. 

Even if you are a trifle away from the 
chief street and not catering to retail trade, 
it will pay you to have a good show window 
kept bright and clean and well dressed. It is 
cheap advertising, creating an appearance 
of prosperity always helpful. 

Insist upon clean, bright paint on the whole 
building, whether you use it all or not. If the 



PAPER SELLING. 23 

store is vacant the owner will not stand on 
this expense for a good tenant. Have plenty 
of signs, and original in style. Get them, if 
you have to buy them away from the town. 

They need not be expensive, indeed some- 
thing that will catch the eye and look well 
for a year or two is all that is needful. Stran- 
gers will often judge you by your signs as 
they do by your clothes. 

The observing man of affairs needs few 
hints as to how T to best display stock. Make 
a good front of what you have and see that 
it never is allowed to look ragged. Paper 
specialties and small wooden ware can be made 
to show up boldly on a small investment. Not 
much shelving will be needed. Pile up paper 
on the original cases. Use the hollow square 
idea as much as possible. With a little skill 
and plenty of work you can make a big show 
for little money. 

Have your office a few feet back from the 
front windows, occupying about half the width 
of the store. Don't be afraid to use space 
for this. It will have good effect when the 
business is new. See that your bookkeeper 
has good light. Arrange a little privacy for 
him when occasion requires, but fix it so that 



24 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

both he and you are usually accessible to every- 
one. This is especially desirable in a small 
city where you are selling chiefly coarse papers, 
and dealing with numerous people, provincial 
in their ideas. They will not forgive you if 
they think you are "stuck up." Keep office 
near to the door and have two glad hands 
ready to shoot out, not effusively, but naturally 
when shy customers come in. If you can't 
wait on them yourself, introduce them to a 
clerk, if unknown, and tell him audibly to 
treat the customer right. These ideas may 
seem rather commonplace, but remember that 
this refers chiefly to people whom you can 
readily size up as liking such attention. In 
this front office no private room is desirable. 
It might savor too much of "style" to suit 
most of your probable customers. Instead 
of a private office there, it would be well to 
have a desk for yourself screened or par- 
titioned off in the rear of the store, if light is 
good. Such a place is necessary if you would 
do hard work and keep undisturbed. It would 
also give you an office in which to talk con- 
fidential matters over with your customers. 
The front office could be made neatly attrac- 
tive while the rear one should at least be cheer- 



PAPER SELLING. 25 

fully fitted up, or perhaps a trifle elaborately 
from the view-point of a first-class advertise- 
ment. 

In a small stock of coarse papers a simple 
stock book is all that is needed. When the 
business grows larger a tag showing exact 
quantity in each pile is desirable. 

Let this stock book, however, be daily re- 
vised and left each night upon your desk so 
that you can verify the count. Be prepared 
for dishonesty in your employees, and guard 
against it carefully, but unostentatiously. Your 
desk near the shipping room may remove 
temptation to pilfer. Two keys to the store 
will be found quite enough. 

Some goods will need to carry a cost mark. 
Here is a good cipher ; one easily remembered 
and not in general use: 

U-S-E-C-H-A-R-I-T-Y 
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0 

A delivery wagon will be almost a necessity 
from the outset and should be made a travel- 
ing advertisement. It need not be an ex- 
pensive rig, nor a large one, but it should out- 
shine in brightness anything on wheels in 
town, Nothing catches the eye quicker than 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



a circus wagon, and you could profitably use 
a subdued circus wagon. If you can buy a 
docile jackass in place of a horse, so much 
the better. Get a bright young man as a 
driver and have him call daily and regularly 
upon every possible paper buyer in the town. 
This systematic work, if done in a pleasant 
way, will eventually bring trade, for it will 
prove irresistible. Some buyers feel nattered 
when rightly sought, others a sort of moral 
obligation to reward kindly persistency. In 
the office proper some of the chief labor-saving 
devices should be installed. No need to run 
into much money at first, but loose leaf ledgers, 
card indices and vertical filing cases are sav- 
ers of money, time and temper. A modern 
typewriting machine, run by the sweet- voiced 
young woman who answers the telephone and 
assists the bookkeeper, might complete the 
office equipment. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SYSTEM ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. 

"If I speak with the tongues of men and 
of angels and have not charity, I am become 
as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." 

So runs Holy Writ, and no less true is the 
business gospel of 1904 that a man may speak 
with the salesman's most silvery tongue, pos- 
sess many golden eagles, have rich financial 
acumen and generous opportunities, yet with- 
out system in his affairs he will become a 
"busted community" in these days of strenu- 
ius competition. 

This seems like putting it rather strong, but 
your own observation will prove the truth of 
the assertion. 

No man need hope for success unless he or 
somebody associated with him applies system 
to every department of the business. 

Time was when it was not so essential as 



28 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

to-day. Now it is the breath of mercantile 
life. 

Unless a man has really studied this question 
of having a time and place for everything he 
can form no estimate of the value of follow- 
ing a rule of this kind. 

To some, order and system are inbred, and 
in extreme cases men become slaves to sys- 
tem. Such persons are not best fitted to con- 
duct large affairs. 

Good salesmen as a rule are not extremely 
systematic, but as they are usually keen ob- 
servers of men and conditions they know 
the value of business system, and when they 
become proprietors insist upon its use in their 
own establishments. 

Ownership of a business frequently remakes 
a man. He is stimulated to do many things 
previously without serious interest to him, and 
to do them better than he has seen them done 
before. His ambition nerves him with a 
keener sense of business proprieties than he 
had known as an employe. 

An excellent rule to establish is to be at 
your place of business early and absolutely on 
time. A half hour of undisturbed work in 
the morning is worth more than an hour and 



PAPER SELLING. 



a half later in the day. In the smaller cities 
7:30 a. m. in summer and 8 a. m. in winter 
is none to early. An hour at noon is sufficient 
absence, while work after 6 p. m. is usually 
unnecessary. Like Sunday work it is a habit 
well to avoid, and careful planning will gen- 
erally tend to eliminate both from business 
pursuits the hours which ought to be sacred to 
the family or your own mental and physical 
betterment. The writer remembers when, as a 
young man, he was placed in charge of a large 
office and assumed work and duties double in 
quantity over his former bank position, that 
for a time he was almost swamped with labor. 
He asked advice of an old mercantile friend 
and got for answer only a motto, "Anticipate." 
In striving to live up to this watchword he 
soon found that by planning systematically his 
work, anticipating the morrow's labor and 
relegating most details to subordinates he 
gained more leisure and a poise of mind im- 
possible to have had without this watchword, 
" Anticipate," and which was only another 
name for system. 

No set rules can here be given for establish- 
ing a business system. Much depends upon 
the man's capital and the extent of the business. 



30 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

First of all, however, the owner should mark 
out a job for himself and make that position 
quite as definite as that of any of the other 
men. It would be well to fix a salary for 
yourself as modest as is consistent with decent 
living and live within it. If you are married 
and have the right kind of a wife she will 
approve of this system of finance while the 
business is new and unproven. If you elect 
to start without a partner, then a clear, level- 
headed man should be hired as bookkeeper 
and credit man. He should be old enough to 
be stable and if enterprising and with live ideas, 
the number of his years is not so important. 
The craze for young men is waning a little 
and for office work and handling credits ex- 
perience is most needful. Then, too, the 
methodical older man is not so apt to embark 
in business for himself as are the juniors. 
Pay him a good salary, since there need be no 
other high-salaried people employed in a new 
business. Those that are hired must be imbued 
with the spirit of system, loyalty and industry. 
Better far to put on a green man or boy, one 
susceptible to instruction, obedient to orders 
and of strictest integrity than to engage help 
with larger experience in your line. As for 



PAPER SELLING. 31 

yourself, if you have systematic theories and 
practices so much the better, but having em- 
ployed systematic machines keep happy, even 
though you lack personal system, since you 
doubtless can create trade, something equally 
necessarv. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER V. 

KEEPING ACCOUNTS STRAIGHT. 

Every office man has special theories about 
the simplest and most accurate way of run- 
ning his accounts. 

The trade papers have led to an exchange 
of ideas and to a perfection of account keeping 
that enables great industries to run their of- 
fices like clock work. With one or two men 
of expert knowledge and executive ability and 
an army of low-priced machine-like mortals, 
transactions representing millions of money are 
quickly handled and summarized for the use 
of department heads. 

From the office standpoint, system has re- 
duced errors to a minimum and made it pos- 
sible by use of consecutive numbers, indices, 
etc., to quickly trace the full details of a cus- 
tomer's business. 

There is still much looseness in many offices 
about delivery tickets. These should be made 



PAPER SELLING. 33 

cut in triplicate for local city business; one 
for the shipping clerk, one for the purchaser 
and one to be signed by the proper clerk at 
the buyer's office. Teamsters should be in- 
structed to get full signatures. If the buyer or 
his agent are not to be found the ticket should 
come back and it must be some one's duty to 
get a signature before the delivery is forgot- 
ten by the receiver of the goods. There need 
be no friction about this and the bookkeeper 
can usually adjust disputed matters by 'phone. 
These signed delivery tickets should be 
promptly turned into the main office and kept 
for a time in the vault or safe. Only by some 
such method can disputed accounts be avoided. 
Merchants are apt to think that a prompt 
mailing or delivery of an invoice makes such 
care of delivery tickets unnecessary, but the 
moral effect on thoughtless help is good, even 
if experience had not proven the necessity for 
such care. Whenever a bill of any size has 
been delivered it would be an excellent plan 
for the dealer to drop in on the customer and 
ask how the goods pleased him. Little at- 
tentions of this kind inspire confidence and 
cement friendships. 

Monthly statements should invariably be 



34 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

sent promptly. It would be well to cultivate 
the plan of always mailing them on the last 
day of each month, then the patron will re- 
ceive yours alone and not among a batch of 
others along about the 2nd to the 5th of the 
month. The usual plan is to omit the na- 
ture of the business on printed statement of 
account. Be different and put it on. It costs 
nothing and has a chance of advertising you. 
Make a point of having your established cash 
discounts show conspicuously on both invoices 
and statements. Some merchants add this 
with a rubber stamp impression, thinking that 
the patron will believe himself especially fa- 
vored. This practice might in some cases lead 
the buyer to think that his credit was ques- 
tioned. 

Standard discounts should be well adhered 
to. If you give two per cent off in ten days it 
might not be policy to quibble over a day or 
two's lateness of remittance. If more than 
that a polite letter should be sent stating that 
in that special case it would be allowed but 
in future you would be obliged to decline to 
make the concession. No good business man 
could take exception to this but would be apt 
to admire your carefulness. 



PAPER SELLING. 35 

If your business is in its infancy you may 
imagine that you can keep your own books and 
save the immediate expense of a bookkeeper. 
This argument is a poor one, for unless you 
are a trained office man, you will waste time 
and lose the vigor you need for managing the 
business, besides this nine men out of ten 
who attempt to keep their own books neglect 
to post them promptly. If every minute of 
your time cannot be put to more profitable 
effort than bookkeeping, you ought not to be 
in business for yourself. Briefly, you cannot 
afford to even try it, and bookkeeping is far 
too important a feature of your establishment 
to be a side duty of the proprietor. Franklin 
once said, "If you want a thing done, do it 
yourself/' He was right then. To-day even 
the lesser captains of industry tell us that if 
you want things done find the right man to 
do them. 

Your accounts will be kept straight if you 
hire the right man to manage them while your 
whole personal effort is devoted to managing 
the general business. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER VI. 

ADVERTISING AN INVESTMENT, NOT AN EX- 
PENSE. 

Advertising is but salesmanship multiplied, 
and a business which is not worth advertising 
is not worth running. 

The live business man of to-day needs no 
argument in proof of the value of advertising. 

Speaking broadly, paper men are not good 
advertisers. With few exceptions they cling 
too closely to precedents. There is no mys- 
tery in ad. writing, and much nonsense is 
daily written about the difficulty of preparing 
advertising. 

The average man is indolent and an ap- 
parent lack of time causes him to neglect a 
seemingly difficult duty. 

Like all else in connection with modern busi- 
ness it should be done systematically and after 
careful consideration of his own special con- 
ditions. 

The paper man should at the outset ap- 



PAPER SELLING. 37 

propriate at least $250 for this purpose the 
first year independent of the expense for office 
stationery. As his business increases it would 
be well to devote from three to five per cent 
of his gross sales in paying for direct publicity. 
Having formulated his plans he should buy 
advertising space, issue regular booklets or 
cards, or adopt any other method of adver- 
tising with the same care and thought as he 
gives to buying his stock in trade. 

If he desires to cover a certain territory, 
say two or three counties, he can select several 
good daily or weekly newspapers and use in 
them all a small, effective card. This must 
be unique and forceful, inserted continuously 
in the weeklies and, say tri-weekly in the 
dailies. If possible adopt some trade mark 
or facsimile of your signature and use this 
on everything, not only in newspaper adver- 
tising but on your envelopes, letter-heads, bill- 
heads, order blanks and, in fact, on every piece 
of printed matter which leaves your office. A 
solid black cut with white lettering, two inches 
deep and a column wide, if persistently used 
in newspaper work will burn your name into 
the memory of the readers as nothing else 
could do. 



38 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

You can get very low prices for inserting 
an electro of this kind on a yearly contract 
with the local papers if you handle them right. 
This ad. is simply to keep your name before 
the people and should be supplemented by 
reading notices in these same papers about 
every two weeks. These news items, for they 
could be worded to appear as such, should 
speak of special goods which you are run- 
ning or treat of improvements at your store. 
They might touch upon your increased busi- 
ness. Almost anything which carries the idea 
that you are up-to-date in your methods will 
be good advertising. 

Get a list of all possible buyers in your sec- 
tion using telephone directories and rural de- 
livery lists for this purpose, and keep it re- 
vised. To this list send something once a 
month. It need not be much, but it should be 
attractive and sent continuously. A large 
private mailing card can be made most ef- 
fective, and they will be read if you have any 
story to tell and put it in true, simple lan- 
guage. Remember that small words are the 
strongest ones. They are easily understood 
and make deepest impression. Kill the big 
words and substitute little ones and it will 
be time well spent. 



PAPER SELLING. 39 

Don't make the mistake of getting cheap 
printing, for it is rank extravagance in the 
end. If your competitor does so, you can 
benefit by his false economy. 

Of course you need not spend so much 
money as the drygoods or shoe people, but 
when you regard money spent for advertising 
and good printing as an investment certain to 
yield dividends, then your checks for these mat- 
ters will be drawn as cheerfully as for rent 
or postage. 

Presumably the paper man who reads these 
pages is also a reader of trade journals and 
familiar with the importance of this subject. 
No real business success is possible without 
printed advertising in some form. 

Good advertising from another standpoint is 
also to have it known that you are always 
in your store at stated hours and ready to 
personally wait upon customers. It is strange 
but true how universal is the desire to be 
waited upon by the proprietor. The appear- 
ance of your stock, office, delivery wagons, and 
your own dress and manner all represent either 
good or bad advertising. 

If you have no special hobby you need one 
as a healthy diversion, and this subject of ad- 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



vertising is a fascinating topic if you once 
get interested in it. 

Experience says that it is not wise to put 
prices before the people. Arouse curiosity, 
excite interest in your goods but avoid prices. 

Keep your low prices, if you have any, as 
a clincher for some big buyer, but remember 
that confidential figures will not be long kept 
secret. Calendars and souvenirs are favorite 
means of advertising in the paper trade. Un- 
less they are especially good or unique they 
are an expensive method of unproven merit. 

Money can easily be wasted and it will pay 
to watch the results of your advertising. Keep 
a book wherein is debited every expenditure 
of this kind. Credit the account with any 
sales you can trace to it. Ask each new cus- 
tomer why he is buying from you. If done 
rightly it will prove mutually helpful. You 
can talk with old customers about your adver- 
tising and this human interest will make you 
more solid with most patrons. Advertising 
serves also to hold old customers while mak- 
ing new. Much of your advertising must 
necessarily prove only of indirect cumulative 
benefit, but its effect even as placing you 
among progressive dealers is worth all it costs. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CREDITS AND COLLECTIONS. 

A new paper warehouse in a new territory 
will be fortunate if it can avoid getting stuck 
with many bad accounts during the first year. 

Later the jobber will come to know per- 
sonally his customers, their financial stand- 
ing and habits of payment, but in the natural 
desire to get trade he will secure a propor- 
tion of chronically hard-up merchants whose 
credit is poor with the older houses. At first 
agency reports must be his chief guide, and 
these at best are far from infallable; indeed, 
reports from the smaller towns especially are 
apt to be strongly biased. It might be well 
to subscribe to two agencies and supplement 
this by salesmen's statements. 

This expense could, perhaps, be saved if a 
determined effort was made to establish a busi- 
ness more nearly on a cash basis. The tend- 
encv of the times is all in that direction. The 



42 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

chief cause of the financial success of depart- 
ment stores is because they sell for cash. Rail- 
roads insist on cash for freight and passage 
regardless of the customs of towns through 
which they run. 

The head of a great jobbing paper house in 
a large Western city told the writer that fully 
85 per cent of their accounts represented cash 
or thirty-day customers, and as the country 
becomes wealthier, more and more will the 
power of money be used in every field where 
credit was once deemed essential. 

This question of selling on time as a preva- 
lent custom in a community might well receive 
closer attention when looking for a location, 
for it will prove an important factor in the 
merchant's success. 

In the retail trade, catering largely to wo- 
men, charge accounts are encouraged as tend- 
ing to larger sales and better prices. For the 
jobbing line the cultivation of and education 
in a cash system has all of the argument in 
its favor, especially now that margins of gross 
profits are so much narrower than in the past. 
The volume of your business may, for a time, 
be lessened by this policy, yet the final net 
results cannot fail to be more comfortable. 



PAPER SELLING. 43 

It is most desirable to tactfully get all the 
information possible from the customer seek- 
ing credit at the time of first purchase, have 
date of payment then and there mutually un- 
derstood. See that both your ledger and his 
invoice and statements bear this agreed date. 
By being frank when asking for references or 
statement of financial condition, frankness in 
return will be fostered. 

If you must sell on time get notes if pos- 
sible; several small ones are far better than 
one large one. 

A polite explanation that you have not suf- 
ficient capital to carry customers and a sug- 
gestion to the buyer that he borrow money 
at his bank and take advantage of the cash 
discounts is a simple way of curbing him if 
his credit is questionable. 

So vitally important is this question of 
credits and collection, and at best, so much a 
matter of detail that almost any jobbing busi- 
ness should employ a competent man to handle 
them and the books. As the business grows 
the details can be given to women clerks; but 
no proprietor, busy with buying and selling- 
goods, studying customers and trade condi- 
tions, can afford more than a supervision over 



44 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

his office affairs and should have a loyal, 
competent man to whom might be given, after 
proving his fitness, a small working interest 
in the business. Such a man will adopt a sys- 
tem for collections that should be free from 
the complex details desirable in a larger busi- 
ness. While the enterprise is young an office 
man can sometimes act as a house salesman 
and if progressive will be glad to familiarize 
himself with grades and prices. 

Few men of ambition to found and push a 
paper business will have a liking for office 
details, but the proprietor should give several 
hours a week to keeping in touch with this 
matter of credits and collections. No letters 
of a dunning character should go out without 
his general supervision. Polite reminders of 
over-due accounts can be better framed by the 
salesman's instinct than if left solely to the 
credit man, whose point of view is usually less 
broad. The owner should be familiar with 
all of the office methods and able to handle 
them in the event of the bookkeeper's ab- 
sence. 

Look over the history of the men success- 
ful in the paper trade and you will find that 



PAPER SELLING. 45 

their office departments have been run sys- 
tematically and courteously. 

Neglect here will spoil the best efforts of 
the best business getter the sun ever shone 
upon. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER VIII. 



HANDLING HELP. 



Advice on this topic is plentiful. Like the 
use of charity, the more that is given the more 
is left for the distributor. 

All purveyors of advice regarding help say 
that loyalty must be the chief quality of those 
who work for others. That is all right 
theoretically, but most of us know that in 
actual business life personal loyalty to an em- 
ployer's interest seems less in evidence than of 
old. 

Of course it should be otherwise and the 
cause may possibly be traceable to the intro- 
duction of department store methods and 
wages, the growth of cooperate interests, and 
the invasion of women into business life, all 
reasons for reduced compensation. 

In a measure, however, the fault lies with 
the employers who lack human interest in 
their clerks, frequently only because so en- 



PAPER SELLING. 47 

grossed with the keen fight now so needed to 
win success. 

Of a necessity there is a greater sense of 
comradeship, of equality, in a small establish- 
ment than in a larger one and this is likely to 
foster a feeling of loyalty. Hence, apprecia- 
tion of work well done and criticism of what 
is not so good should be made with this fact 
in mind. Dispense judicious praise when de- 
served, more than blame when that is deserved. 
Enlarge upon what is especially well done, 
point out what should be remedied. The pay- 
ment of good wages is a part of the treatment 
which makes men loyal, but only a part of it. 
Appreciation and consideration if rightly and 
cautiously shown will produce loyalty every 
time. 

You can frequently consult with your older 
men, you can show interest in the progress 
or welfare of the younger ones without en- 
couraging dictation from the former or spoil- 
ing the latter. 

Consideration only means a use of the golden 
rule. If a mistake has been made do not blow 
up the culprit before the others. Take him 
aside and ask how it happened. It is mis- 
taken kindness to ignore errors of any kind. 



48 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

Treat the mistake seriously, yet talk courteously 
to the offender. This course will impress the 
matter upon his mind and lessen like repeti- 
tions. 

Make the men believe that you are depend- 
ing upon them for something and that you 
have faith in their integrity and word. If you 
can give your head man a working interest 
you may keep him a great deal longer than 
you could in any other way. Most good, first- 
class men have it in mind to be in business 
for themselves some day. If they have not 
such ambition they are not extra good men. 

When a clerk comes to you about an offer 
from some one else a good square talk is 
mutually beneficial. Try to look at it from 
his standpoint and yet it is not always de- 
sirable to grant an increase of salary merely 
because of this better offer he may have re- 
ceived. If you desire very much to keep him 
say that he should consider the chances of 
future advancement equally with the question 
of salary. You can truthfully say that it is 
a bad plan for a man to change and remind 
him that long steady employment by one house 
is the best of recommendations. You might 
to such a man add greater responsibilities and 



PAPER SELLING. 49 

promise a raise in wages after a few months 
if he proves worthy of the place. 

Keep the force always busy during working 
hours and encourage them to make suggestions 
helpful to the business. Keep their confidence 
and respect but don't be too talkative or con- 
fidential at any time. The man who talks 
about His plans to everyone in his employ 
soon loses their esteem. 

As a rule don't employ relatives. It is sure 
to breed dissatisfaction. 

With more ignorant employes be kind but 
firm. Too much courtesy here may not be 
understood and taken for weakness. There 
are rare occasions when nothing but a knock- 
down argument embellished in flesh and blood 
will curb impertinence and check insult. Have 
sand in reserve. Weaklings soon become 
''dead ones" in modern business. 

An honest man with a few brains and a 
heart in working order need not worry over 
the problem of handling help. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER IX. 

EDUCATING AND HANDLING CUSTOMERS. 

A great deal of your success will depend 
upon your ability to educate and handle cus- 
tomers. 

If you are a salesman you probably think 
that you know how to handle customers and 
you may shy at this suggestion about educat- 
ing them as impracticable. 

But as a matter of fact you have been do- 
ing it right along and neither you nor your 
patrons may have been aware of it. 

It is assumed that you possess only moderate 
capital and cannot afford to carry a very com- 
plete stock, hence this matter of educating cus- 
tomers' wants, becomes a dollar-saving propo- 
sition for you. 

Promptness, courtesy, showing the glad 
hand moved by a genuine human interest in 
your customers, will make your task both easy 
and pleasant. 



PAPER SELLING. 51 

Many buyers think they know exactly what 
they want and these must be handled with 
great tact if you would sell them what you 
want. You can tell them that you are out of 
just that weight, shade or quality, but can 
order it from the mill and will do it with 
pleasure, incidentally suggesting a trial of a 
little of the jjoods you have in stock. These 
are points scarcely needed by the good sales- 
man, but he may be reminded that such 
methods won't go with numerous patrons, un- 
less the salesman has real sincerity of man- 
ner. A false note in such talk will easily drive 
away a suspicious patron. 

You will soon find out about what your 
territory most requires and then you can grad- 
ually introduce such goods as you can buy to 
best advantage. The few sales for immediate 
delivery which you will miss are as nothing 
compared with the danger of tying up your 
capital in slow-selling stock. 

You should be a good listener and give due 
deference to the words of an experienced, 
perhaps conceited, buyer among your cus- 
tomers, but all the same politely hold the 
whip handle and skillfully manage to sell him 
what you have by unconscious education. 



52 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

The forceful man with confidence in his 
own technical knowledge, yet unmixed with 
vainness, is really a hypnotist in a business 
sense. 

Cultivate the practice of introducing some 
special goods to your biggest customers first. 
Mankind is the same as ever. It is flattering 
to a buyer's judgment to think that he has 
obtained something entirely new, exclusive or 
at a bargain. Not only have your buyer think 
this but let it be true. Most men are imitators. 
There are fewer people of original minds than 
we think, did we but know the real facts sur- 
rounding human beings. Laziness is a com- 
mon fault and most of us let others think for 
us. Start with good sales to the largest and 
most prosperous houses and the smaller fel- 
lows will fall in line like sheep after the leader. 

In handling customers it is probable that the 
owner is wise enough to treat the smallest 
buyer with courtesy and respect, but he must 
watch his employees, especially the younger 
ones who frequently are afflicted with the 
"swell head." The telephone is the innocent 
means of doing great harm to some houses. 
It can be made to do the worst possible adver- 
tising. Did you ever have occasion to 



PAPER SELLING. 53 

ring up some store that you were favoring 
with your patronage and have some one at 
the other end say, quickly: "Well, what is 
it?" or "What do you want?" Even a plain 
and impatient "well," seems to grate a little. 
A polite reply to a "kick" over the 'phone will 
do a great deal of good; a blunt or impolite 
one will make matters worse. If it can be 
avoided don't let a "kid" answer the 'phone. 
It will be found real economy to employ a 
sweet-voiced girl to run the 'phone and help 
the bookkeeper. If you get the right kind at 
the start she will soon be invaluable to the 
credit man. Girls don't get drunk, play the 
races or steal your money, and as a rule, won't 
give away your business secrets to a com- 
petitor. 

When you get a customer post up about 
his history. Make him a friend if he is of 
the right sort. Always call him by his name or 
title if he has one and see that this is done by 
your employees. If he has had a war or 
political record, occasionally bring him out on 
this or any other hobby. 

Decently play upon this great weakness of 
most men — human vanity. Especially does 
this apply to the successful, self-educated mor- 



54 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

tal. Carlyle says, "The self-made man is al- 
ways proud of his maker." 

Don't forget names and faces. This may 
not come natural to you, but cultivate it and 
it will grow. If you have seen a man but once 
and, perhaps, again chance to meet him on the 
street it is marvelous how the little courtesy 
of calling him by name will impress him. 

Wait personally on all the customers you 
can who come to the store, and make your- 
self familiar with their peculiarities. 

Educating customers is simply industrous 
tact, and handling them right is the pleasantest 
feature of a man's daily business, provided he 
has a kindly heart and honest motives. With- 
out these mainsprings of action he can never 
really know the meaning of success in its high- 
est sense. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW TO TREAT COMPETITORS. 

In no way have business methods so changed 
as in this matter of treating competitors. Pos- 
sibly there was a period prior to the Civil 
war when business courtesy was the rule. 
After that time, with business ethics and pub- 
lic morals upset by the scourge of war, there 
came several decades during which it seemed 
to be a shrewd, good business policy to decry 
others in the same line. Newspapers espe- 
cially, even the greatest and best, defamed each 
other in columns of abuse. That such jour- 
nalism was not only tolerated but enjoyed, 
is only to be explained on the theory that it 
was the mistaken spirit of the age, as shown 
in the business and social history of those 
times. 

To-day, all really broad-gauged merchants 
are disposed to be friendly with their com- 



56 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

petitors. Only the narrow-minded, half- 
baked dealer at least, now traduces a com- 
petitor. Nor is the change only surface po- 
liteness. It is a philosophy brought about by 
better acquaintance with one another, for half 
the trouble in the world is due to misunder- 
standings of words and motives. There is 
room for all in this great and growing nation 
and with some qualifications the old adage, 
"Competition is the life of trade," is still true. 

Occasionally competition is expensive, de- 
structive in its methods, but ultimately when 
the guerrillas have had their brief hour of 
havoc, the results are helpful to the stable 
houses which remain. 

If you can reach an understanding with 
your competitors as to prices, territory, etc., 
much comfort will be gained. 

There are some men, however, who cannot 
be reasoned with, and these should be allowed 
to have their uncombated say, as the quickest 
way to tire them out. Sometimes this policy 
is hard to pursue but it never fails to win. The 
writer once managed a business. One com- 
petitor was of the old, abusive order and 
thought that we ought to get off the earth. 
Our dignified silence gained the respect of the 



PAPER SELLING. 57 

trade, and all that was said against us quickly 
acted as a boomerang. Some one has said, 
"Silence is the first resort of wise men, and 
the last one of fools." In this case we did 
concede a little to the human instinct for re- 
venge, but regretfully. 

Make it a rule to say nothing against your 
competitor, and do not allow your men to 
speak ill of him or, indeed, to allude to him, 
if possible. The chances are that a really 
mean man can rarely keep in his meanness. 
His talk may do him a little good for a time 
in individual cases where you are not known, 
but if you say nothing derogatory your fair- 
ness and decency will gain respect. 

Trade clubs, merchants' associations and 
business conventions are all helpful in drawing 
competitors together. If you are new to a 
town make it a point to early meet your com- 
petitors. Let them know that you do not wear 
hoofs or horns. It is not necessary to be 
effusively "a good fellow," but you can show 
the disposition to work in harmony with them. 
You will have many chances to favor your 
competitors. Look for these chances, as much 
for your own satisfaction as from better mo- 
tives. 



58 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

Any man who has been on the road as a 
salesman knows what it is to be pumped by 
a dealer wishing to learn what a rival is do- 
ing. Sometimes such travelers have them- 
selves brought about a better understanding 
between dealers by tactfully repeating some 
pleasant words said by one about the other. 
Tale-bearers usually carry only the mean re- 
marks and in cases of the opposite kind the 
report was as grateful as unexpected. 

A young man once left a firm where he 
had been long employed, to start for himself 
in the same city. The old house was not broad 
or wise enough to accept the situation, but 
fought him with tongue and prices. Their 
action brought him sympathy and trade, as it 
always does, especially when the "under fel- 
low" is of the right mettle. When asked what 
he had to say about his old employers he re- 
plied, "Nothing; they do talking enough for 
us both. I worked for them faithfully for 
years and they paid me well and treated me 
nicely. Since I left them I hear they sing a 
different song, but they are not hurting us. 
They have succeeded in advertising us well, 
and, no doubt, have done us some good. None 
of them speak to me now, but T shall live, no 



PAPER SELLING. 59 

doubt, and there may come a time when they 
will stop their foolishness and we can both 
improve our conditions." 

Such a reply was creditable to the young- 
man's head and heart. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XL 

KICKERS AND HOW TO CURE THEM. 

Kickers are a sort of necessary evil and at 
times become a positive good to the dealer 
who is looking toward improving his busi- 
ness methods. They knock the conceit out of 
the merchant who frequently needs the ex- 
perience. 

They have to be endured, sometimes can 
be cured, and at all times furnish that healthy 
spice to business. The writer recalls one who 
kept up continuous performances, partly be- 
cause he was built that way, being a dyspeptic 
from birth. A charge was once added to an 
invoice for cash paid out for ice on some per- 
ishable goods; such expenses were left to the 
discretion of the writer, dependent upon the 
weather. It was hot in Chicago when the cars 
left, and cool when they reached St. Louis, 
so that a draft drawn against the property on 
the St. Louis man was paid less this charge. 



PAPER SELLING. 61 

Months passed during which other transac- 
tions occurred, but the disputed claim remained 
unpaid. Finally the writer wrote a special 
letter which he thought was sufficiently clear 
and courteous enough to bring a settlement. 
These were the days when the two cities were 
strong business rivals. The letter came back 
with a scrawl under it, reading in blue pencil, 

"Go to H and don't forget I told you to." 

This, for a time, was irritating until it was re- 
turned with a red pencil sub-postscript, "Much 
obliged for your polite invitation to visit St. 
Louis, but cannot leave at present." The next 
mail brought a check for half the amount. 

There are several classes of kickers ; among 
them are those who kick because they are 
ignorant of the goods, the man who has an 
honest grievance, the thoroughly dishonest 
man and the one who finds he can buy cheaper. 
The man ignorant about paper will soon get his 
freshness rubbed off and join one of the other 
classes, or perhaps he may come out from the 
kickers and join a class who never kick. This 
is a small class and are usually those who stick 
pretty close to one jobbing house for each 
kind of goods they buy. The honest one who 
kicks onlv because he has a "kick coming" 



G2 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

sometimes does it in a way to make the dealer 
have more faith in him than ever before. 

Since most of this book has reference to deal- 
ers covering a rather small territory the dis- 
honest kicker who works for gain can not 
get much advantage over the paper man. 

A grievance should be quickly investigated 
and if the goods were shipped direct from the 
mill and prove clearly to be defective, no hag- 
gling should ensue, but a settlement then and 
there arranged. A disposition to promptly 
correct error and the time cheerfully given to 
the investigation of grievances will always re- 
dound to your advantage. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER XII. 

LETTER WRITING A PROFITABLE PRIVILEGE. 

Letter writing, as a means of profitably ad- 
vertising a merchant, is seldom appreciated 
to its full extent. 

It is often called an art. In business it is 
an opportunity, a privilege and if looked upon 
in this light the dealer will soon take a pleasure 
in seeing how the typewriter daily serves to 
build up his custom and credit. If a man only 
realized that the best letters are the simplest, 
how easy the art, he would seize every good 
chance to briefly get himself before both buy- 
ers and customers. Practice alone will tone 
down a redundancy of words, permissible 
when spoken, but hurtful in letter writing. 

A paper man should use the best of sta- 
tionery for most of his correspondence. Adopt 
some distinctive style or color of paper, and 
stick to it. A light tint of blue or something 
still more in variance with the ordinary kind 



G4 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

will emphasize your name. Envelopes to 
match the shade are desirable. Experience 
proves that a long number nine envelope has 
more effect on the average mind than the 
usual six and a half size. It looks official to 
recipients of little mail, and it is more easily 
opened and read by the big fellow. It costs 
a trifle more and creates an idea of prosperity 
which may be helpful to the new jobber. 

Some will say that these are small points and 
may consider the larger envelope a needless 
expense, but all the same, the writer is satis- 
fied that investigation will sustain the opinion 
expressed. 

If you are not catering to the printers' trade, 
a lithographed letter-head will be found not 
only the handsomest, but really the cheapest. 
For town correspondence or brief notes to mill 
men after you are well known, half sheets of 
cheaper stock can be used. 

Make sure that your trade-mark or firm 
name line is repeated on everything, order 
blanks, delivery tickets, envelopes, price lists, 
cards, etc. 

You can adopt this firm name line from 
your letter-heads if desired, suggesting a style 
to the lithographer. Zinc etchings can be 



PAPER SELLING. 65 

cheaply made similar to the lithographed name, 
for use on the other stationery and newspaper 
advertising. All this is the best kind of ad- 
vertising, since most people are too busy to 
more than glance at printed matter. A trade- 
mark or special lettering for your name, fin- 
ally becomes impressed upon them, which is 
really all you want. Your name, town and 
that you deal in paper are facts that you can- 
not too often burn into the memory of the 
people. 

Do all your own letter writing if possible, 
except those connected with the routine of the 
credit department. Establish a system and 
don't deviate from it, even if it occasionally 
involves night work. A little planning will 
arrange so that most letters can leave on first 
mail from your town. Get the habit of answer- 
ing all important letters early in the day be- 
fore there are many interruptions of your 
time. 

All letters enclosing money require an 
answer. Of course a receipt is frequently all 
that is needed, yet here is a chance to show a 
friendly interest, and over your own signature. 
Ask about condition of trade or crops in the 
writer's section or tell him about some bar- 



66 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

gains you have. Practice in this line will 
give you a chance to write a letter in most 
cases. The same idea can be used in the ac- 
knowledgment of an order. Inquiries about 
the price of stock of course require prompt 
reply. If a letter comes into your office which 
will take you several days to hunt up the de- 
sired information, write at once and say so. 
Postage stamps are not luxuries and the 
chances are that you will make and keep sev- 
eral good friends for every postage stamp you 
lose. 

Sometimes letter writing is described as 
merely talking on paper, but this is not true. 

You can call a man a liar in conversation 
with a good natured laugh, but it is an alto- 
gether different thing when you put that word 
in a letter. Always read over a letter carefully 
and try to see yourself in the place of the 
man who will receive it. 

If you are angry at a man, relieve your 
feelings by writing him, but hold this kind of 
letter until the next day and then re-read it 
again after a good night's sleep. 

Promptness in replying to letters and clear- 
ness of expression, coupled occasionally with a 
few words about business being good with you 



PAPER SELLING. 67 

will do much towards putting you in good 
standing with the manufacturer. Such letters 
will need time to compose as they should be 
terse, forceful and hopeful in tone. Letters to 
your customers can be a bit gossipy and con- 
tain references to the man's family, horse or 
chickens. 

Open your own mail. Start out with a de- 
termination to handle a few important things 
yourself and be slow to delegate authority to 
subordinates. 

One of your best assets is this privilege of 
letter writing. Enlarge its scope and you are 
apt to coin more dollars. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XIII. 

VALUE OF TWO PER CENT. PAY AS YOU GO. 

If you once appreciate the value of taking 
every two per cent discount you will soon also 
be able to pay as you go, and thus enjoy the 
supreme satisfaction of owing no man any- 
thing but good will. 

In starting business with ready cash in hand, 
you will make sure of this discount. Later, 
when your capital is all invested in stock or 
accounts it will need much thought and work 
to get in the funds, but it can be done, if you 
are a man of industry and force. 

Resolve that you must have the advantage 
of this two per cent and you will get it. The 
two per cent not only means two per cent off 
the bill but it means a smaller bill. It also 
means teaching one the value of keeping noth- 
ing but good accounts on his books, and lastly, 
it means teaching one the value of interest. 



PAPER SELLING. 69 

Interest is something which works while 
you sleep, and while you rest Sundays. If 
you are paying money to your bank for inter- 
est and trusting your stock out you will be 
very apt, under this silent teacher, to make the 
other fellow pay interest also. 

If you have the laudable ambition to be 
known as a cash buyer of paper and to have 
the added comfort of knowing that you eat 
nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing that is 
not paid for before it goes to your home, you 
will surely learn to let no discount escape you, 
for you will always have in hand the price that 
takes the discount and makes you and yours 
happier and better. Like Whittier's Village 
Blacksmith, you can look every man in the 
face. This kind of contentment is better than 
riches and is a spirit of independence far too 
rare among Americans. 

If you can arrange with your bank to take 
all the notes which you have to accept it would 
be well. If you must owe, better borrow of 
your bank and show a bold front to the mill 
men. No one but your banker need know how 
you stand financially. 

It will not take long for you to get known as 
a cash buver. The salesmen on the road will 



70 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

be sure to see you. Mill men and big jobbers 
will keep in touch with you and bargains will 
be constantly offered. 

To neglect to take the two per cent is fre- 
quently a mark of slack methods and weak 
business ability. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GETTING IN A RUT. 

The worse feature about the man who has 
fallen into a rut is that he doesn't know it. 

All of us have a streak of indolence in our 
make-up and if the merchant has an income 
independent of his daily business, laziness is 
almost sure to increase and nothing but failure, 
or the strong words of some real friend is ever 
likely to shake him out of the rut of self- 
satisfied laziness into the road which leads to 
success, provided there is sufficient motive 
power in the man himself to enable him to 
climb the hill. 

The man in a rut advertises spasmodically, 
if at all. When business is good he thinks 
he don't need it and when trade is dull he says 
he can't afford to. Gladstone never got in a 
rut even when he had passed into the eighties. 
He possessed the keenest vision of men and 
events, causes and effects. Not long before 



72 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

he died he said, "Nothing but the mint can 
make money without advertising." Bradstreet 
tells us that exactly 84 per cent of the mer- 
chants who failed last year did not advertise 
in the newspapers. The rest probably used 
the wrong mediums. 

One of the ruts into which men fall, who do 
not read trade papers, advertising literature or 
study the signs of the times, is a failure to 
understand what might be called economical 
extravagance. The live business man daily 
practices it. In a store, for instance, there is 
the appearance of extravagance in the use of 
fine paper and twine which give the bundles 
an appearance of elegance which evidently 
draws trade. The day has long since passed 
when people will go to a slip-shod, shabby 
store to buy goods, thinking that they can buy 
them cheaper than in an elegant, modern, up- 
to-date one, and the sooner the old fogy, stingy 
merchants find that out, the better it will be for 
them. 

Because many tight fisted men are pros- 
perous the mental argument of the "ratters," 
who do not read nor widely observe, men who 
only think that think, often leads to foolish 
economies and the loss of great' business pos- 



PAPER SELLING. 73 

sibilities. These wealthy samples of mean- 
ness are ofttimes penurious because of early 
circumstances and are close from the force of 
habit. Sometimes they try to fight against 
their chief fault. Penuriousness has become 
second nature and that nature asserts itself 
in every act and expenditure. 

As is well known, habit forges its chains 
more tightly around a man as the years creep 
on. The young men can scarcely understand 
how habit becomes more powerful even than 
principle. It is the older men who ought to 
brush up more against their fellows, travel 
among those in the same business, visit the 
mills East and West, read inspiring business 
stories and keep the heart young and the mind 
active. Some of those who are in the ruts of 
custom and precedent, think that they cannot 
afford to travel and get away from ordinary 
business routine. If they but knew it they 
could better afford to mortgage the homestead 
than not to try a cure for this insidious dis- 
ease of "in the rut." Ambition is being stifled 
while self-centered ignorance prevents them 
from getting the keenest enjoyment out of 
life. 



74 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

The old or middle aged man, backed with 
his experience and filled with a zeal for a 
knowledge of new methods for time and brain 
saving, makes the ideal merchant. 

These are the days when men must "do" 
more than merely "be." It behooves any man 
who has children or young employes to teach 
them the difference between true and false 
economy. To-day the liberal merchant, dis- 
creetly generous is the man who will gain solid 
success. Business prosperity appears to be 
founded on a mixture of rigid economy and 
liberal ideas. How to mix the ingredients 
needs careful consideration. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SELLING FOR CASH. 

In the early stages of a new business the 
proprietor can afford to spend a little time 
explaining the advantages of buying for cash 
and as inducement he can allow three per cent 
off. Many country merchants who sell largely 
to farmers on time get out of the habit of tak- 
ing discounts, thinking that they can't spare 
the money, but as your bills will not be large 
it may not be difficult to start the habit on their 
paper bills. During the past few years crops 
have been good and prices for farm products 
liberal and this has tended to shorter accounts 
at the stores. The necessity or rather the de- 
sirability of doing a paper business on as nearly 
a cash business as possible, and on thoroughly 
business principles, was never so fully realized 
as it is among the thinking paper men of to- 
day. The margins are not large and have been 
decreasing for several years. 



76 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

The result of decreased margins will be that 
many of the paper sellers must either change 
their tactics or get out of trade. Larger sales 
on smaller profits is the tendency in every line. 
Impress upon your customers the fact that 
you cannot profitably do a money lending busi- 
ness and the reasonable merchant will quickly 
appreciate the point. There is a large class 
of men whom you cannot afford to credit long 
on in large amounts. They abound in every 
community. They are good natured, honest 
men, but lack the ability to lessen the credit 
lines to their patrons. Their long acquaint- 
ance with everybody keeps them chronically 
poor. Many of them fall down on the ancient 
fallacy that they must do much of the work 
in their store with their own hands. They 
work hard but not wisely and frequently over- 
buy just because they are offered long time 
without paying any apparent interest. The in- 
terest is there, all the same, and your close 
figures can be explained to them on the theory 
that your business is practically a cash one 
both in buying and selling. The peculiar thing 
about these men is that they make the same 
mistakes year after year as long as they can 
get any one to trust them. 



PAPER SELLING. 



Your competitor can easily sell such men, 
but it need make no difference to you what 
others do, the thing for you, or any other pro- 
gressive jobber to do, is to have short accounts 
on your books. Put these amounts into a note 
if not paid promptly and if they let their notes 
go to protest you can politely decline to sell 
them again except for cash. Keep your tem- 
per and keep your stock rather than run long 
accounts with any but the most substantial 
trade. The latter, you will find, are usually 
wise enough under most conditions to take all 
the discounts you offer. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XVI. 



LOSING YOUR GRIP. 



Under the most favorable circumstances and 
after the most watchful buying, selling and 

Sickness, death, loss of valued employees, 
credit methods, there will come times when 
things all seem to go wrong, 
cut-throat competition. Crop failures, falling 
prices with large stocks on hand and other 
unforeseen troubles usua'lly come in cycles and 
all at once. If you have been reasonably suc- 
cessful you will be surprised how jealousy will 
crop up even among supposed friends and 
even relatives. About this time you find your- 
self growing pessimistic and ready to tell your 
troubles to others. Right here check your- 
self, for this is the start towards losing your 
grip. Brace up. If you have been a little 
careless in dress, change for the better at once. 
Recently a large merchant failed, and in talk- 
ing about it with a mutual friend he said that 



PAPER SELLING 79 

he saw it coming. "Did you not notice," said 
the latter, "that Jones lately went about with 
unblacked shoes and unshaven face, where be- 
fore he took extreme pride in his personal ap- 
pearance ?" 

A wealthy man was asked the secret of his 
prosperity. "When I was poor I talked as if 
I were rich, and when I became rich I talked 
as if I were poor." The man of real strength 
of character is not disconcerted by trivial dis- 
appointments, nor dismayed by greater ones. 
The self-reliant man is nerved by difficulties 
and obstacles to greater effort. Having health, 
character and energy, no man need lose his 
grip, be circumstances ever so unfavorable. 
The writer knew a man trained as a book- 
, keeper who lost his position and, having no 
financial resources or training in other work, 
became disheartened over his failure to obtain 
employment. He was fast losing his grip 
when a neighbor accidentally learning the state 
of affairs, sought him out and offered him 
the gratuitous use of a horse and wagon and 
an endorsement at a paper house for a small 
quantity of wrapping paper. The young man 
was absolutely a novice in the business, but 
he persevered through two weeks of solicit- 



80 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

ing without an order. The third week brought 
a little success, and within two months he had 
built up a trade which yielded him an income 
much beyond the one he had earned as a book- 
keeper. He is still in the same business, and 
the years have come and gone, adding to his 
prosperity until to-day he is the head of quite 
an establishment, all obtained without a dollar 
of capital. 

In telling the writer his story he said that 
the open-air experience brought him a cheer- 
fulness which served as capital and from the 
moment he took the reins on the old wagon 
he knew that he could and would build up a 
business. 

This case was in Chicago, and his territory 
was one in which competition was especially 
keen. 

There is such a thing as minimizing diffi- 
culties. The world has little use for the 
weak-kneed, the faint-hearted, but the con- 
queror who carries victory in his very pres- 
ence, who overcomes opposition which appals 
weak minds, who does not skip his difficult 
problems, who conquers everything which gets 
in his way, is always in demand. People who 
accomplish little of real moment have often a 



PAPER SELLING. 



positive genius for seeing difficulties in the 
way of everything they undertake. There is 
always an "if," a "but," or a "can't" in the 
road. Obstacles are like wild animals. They 
are cowards, but they will bluff you if they 
can. If they see you are afraid of them; if 
you stand and hesitate, if you take your eye 
from theirs, they are liable to spring upon 
you ; but if you do not flinch, if you look them 
squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight. 
So difficulties flee before absolute fearlessness ; 
they are very real and formidable to the timid, 
and grow larger with vacillating contempla- 
tion. If we but knew it, our own selfishness, 
our desire for comfort, for pleasure, is the 
greatest obstacle existent. 

If you see any signs that you are losing 
your grip, take a bath, a good night's sleep, 
read some inspiring story about some one who 
has succeeded, and then pitch into the first bit 
of work that comes to hand. It matters little 
what it is. If times are dull, get out after the 
customers, and your new earnestness will com- 
pel sales. No healthy, sane man in America 
need ever lose his grip. 



HELPS TO. PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XVII. 



SPREADING OUT. 



Many a man has not sense enough to really 
profit by his past experience. Still a larger 
number cannot benefit by the mistakes of 
others. Those few who can apply such les- 
sons as a guide for their own life are the suc- 
cessful men in the trade. 

The writer knew a prosperous house in a 
large city who felt justified in taking larger 
quarters. The store they selected was very 
well located, roomy and especially adapted to 
their growing business. They only needed the 
first floor and basement, but could not secure 
the coveted place without leasing the entire 
three-story building. They found a firm also 
looking for more room, and by renting them 
the two upper stories secured for themselves 
the desired first-floor quarters. The sub-ten- 
ants were well rated financially and appar- 
ently making money. Within three months 



PAPER SELLING. 83 

after both firms had settled in their new loca- 
tion, the sub-tenants failed. For two years 
the upper stories remained vacant, entailing 
a dead loss of $3,000 upon the firm who had 
signed the lease for the entire building. It 
was a case of regretted spreading out and is 
but the history of many another concern. 

Memory recalls the experience of two old 
friends who established themselves in a mod- 
est manufacturing business in Chicago. Se- 
curing some large contracts, they rapidly made 
money and steadily increased their plant, still 
prospering in spite of fires and labor strikes. 
After a few years they accepted an offer from 
an estate to build them a specially designed 
building three times the size of their existing 
factory, and moved into it after signing a 
long lease which called for a small fortune in 
yearly payments. After that it was a strenu- 
pus financial tussle. They worked like slaves 
from 7 a. m. till 7 p. m., neglecting all in order 
to swing a business commensurate with their 
expenses. From jovial, companionable fellows 
they grew into chronic dyspeptics, grasping 
in disposition, and with pessimistic views of 
all in heaven and earth. Both have now with- 
drawn from business. Perhaps they may 



84 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

have secured some dollars as a result of their 
labors, but, as the writer occasionally sees 
them, it is evident that they did not secure 
what Solomon of old said was great riches — 
contentment. 

No one who reads these lines can fail to 
recall numerous instances in the paper trade. 
Perhaps a majority of the failures which have 
occurred during the past twenty years among 
paper men can be traced to this cause. 

Business life is made up of years of pros- 
perity and periods of hard times, and men are 
sure to forget during the years of plenty that 
times were ever different, or that leanness is 
bound to come again. This country has not 
had a panic for many years and some optimists 
argue that changed conditions will serve to 
prevent any real hard times from ever again 
striking us. Let it be hoped that this is a true 
prophecy. Its chief weakness is that wealth 
begets over-confidence, high living and care- 
lessness in business methods. 

A jobber often thinks that he can safely and 
rapidly increase his business by using a little 
spare capital that he has been able to accumu- 
late, but he forgets that times are ever chang- 
ing and the day may come when that ready 



PAPER SELLING. 85 

money may be the saving of the business he 
now considers so secure. He underestimates 
too, the fact that he will be loading himself 
up with new cares likely to shorten his days 
and make life less worth living. 

There is a danger line just beyond the words 
progress and enterprise, which the man of 
sound judgment can well keep in mind. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



EXECUTIVE ABILITY. 



Looking backward and trying to sum up the 
reasons why some men make such a signal 
success of their affairs, the writer is con- 
vinced that it is the merchant of general all 
around business ability who is the winner, 
rather than the specialist. 

This applies only to the proprietor or man- 
ager. A good employe may well be a spe- 
cialist and for this he can draw big money. 
In the professions everything runs to spe- 
cialization. The general practitioner and all 
around lawyer is slowly disappearing for the 
reason that the field has become so broad that 
it is beyond the mental power of one man to 
cover it thoroughly. The ability of the spe- 
cialist may bring him a partnership in time, 
but he still sticks reasonably close to his 
specialty. 



PAPER SELLING. 87 

Now the owner of the business is an en- 
tirely different proposition. If he lack execu- 
tive ability and cannot sift affairs so as to 
determine what most needs his time and en- 
ergy, then will the whole business suffer. 

Take the matter of system. Suppose he 
has an office man who is really a "system 
crank," wasting time and money on devices 
and methods utterly unneeded in a small busi- 
ness, his good business sense will decide that 
too much method is as dangerous as too little. 
To see an evil, with a man of executive talent 
is to kill it. To know men is about as im- 
portant as to know goods, hence the executive 
can soon estimate the value of all his em- 
ployees and balance their good points against 
their weaknesses. 

There is the advertising account, be it little 
or small, it may prove only a waste of money 
or it may result in actually hurting the busi- 
ness if the advertising is not worded right 
or placed unwisely. An expert advertising- 
man may write so as to draw trade, but it 
may be that in the enthusiasm for his task 
he may so word his ads. as to make it diffi- 
cult to hold that trade. 

The ability to separate the chaff from the 



88 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

wheat, to eliminate the consideration of trifles 
and to grasp the condition of the whole busi- 
ness and its relation to future possibilities, is 
the mark of a man of executive talent. Such 
a proprietor can see that the salesmen are in 
accord with the policy and principles of the 
house. He can tell employes, should they need 
such advice, that sharp practice never pays. 
Some men think it an evidence of cleverness 
and gleefully tell of their success in over- 
reaching others. We laugh at the stories, for 
our sense of humor is stronger than our sense 
of right, but we are inclined to be suspicious 
of those men afterward. Confidence is busi- 
ness capital, but is a kind of capital easily 
impaired by just such stories as mentioned. 

Years ago if a boy wanted to be a plumber, 
or a carpenter, he had to serve long years of 
unnecessary apprenticeship, but to-day corre- 
spondence and technical training schools give 
him better knowledge in a fraction of the time. 
The business men of the country are too apt to 
think that long years of training are absolutely 
essential before a man is fit to run a business 
of his own. When they do start, they are apt 
to be specialists in a sort of fashion, rather 
than men who have studied the causes of 



PAPER SELLING. 



other men's failures or who have kept in touch 
with advanced methods of general business. 
A man who has been at the head of a grocery 
or drug house, or run a factory where his 
executive ability has been tested, can fre- 
quently start a paper business and after a brief 
experience conduct it better than a man whose 
knowledge of paper was confined to the office 
or salesroom for long years. Adaptability to 
circumstances and a clear head will go far to 
offset the lack of training in a paper ware- 
house. Of course, many a man who starts 
in business for himself thinks that he has had 
a broad experience in all parts of his chosen 
trade. He should well consider whether they 
have the gift of management. If he is honest 
with himself and knows his limitations he had 
better be associated with a partner and devote 
his energies to the part which his taste dic- 
tates. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XIX. 



AN AIM IN LIFE. 



The unsystematic man is always aimless. 

That is, he has no fixed, definite aim in life. 
Of course he thinks he has and spasmodically 
he aims at something, and if he don't hit it, 
it don't much matter. It is fate, fortune or 
luck against him. 

When I was a boy my grandfather gave me 
a shotgun. I started out hunting blackbirds 
and spent two days wasting powder but 
brought down no game. My grandfather 
asked me how I was getting on, and I was 
obliged to confess that I had not hit anything. 
"How do you aim?" said he. "O, I see a 
flock of blackbirds and fire at 'em. There are 
so many of them I wonder I don't get some." 

"Boy," said the old gentleman, " fix your 
eye on one blackbird at a time." I remem- 
ber the advice as applicable to lots of other 
things besides blackbirds. 



PAPER SELLING. 



The paper man may have experience, zeal 
and ambition, but he will never accomplish 
anything worth while unless he starts out 
with a positive aim and makes his whole life 
work shape toward it. 

Sir Thomas Lipton, a stowaway cabin boy 
not many decades ago, to-day a peer of Great 
Britain and loved in two hemispheres, is a 
living example of having a steadfast aim. 
This aim was to be a great grocer and to place 
his name in every part of the globe. He shot 
long and hard but his arrows touched the bulls 
eye. He has had lots of free advertising and 
unneeded help since he grew famous, but as 
boy and young man there was nothing back of 
him, but a stout heart and this singleness of 
aim. He revolutionized the retail grocery 
business of conservative old England as John 
Wanamaker and Marshall Field have revolu- 
tionized the retail dry goods business in 
America. 

In planning the future and studying exist- 
ing conditions, as men with a real aim always 
do, he laid down three sound business prin- 
ciples and worked out his success on those 
lines. They were the immense superiority of 
a cash over a credit trade, the necessity of 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



reducing middle men to a minimum and the 
indispensableness of advertising. His busi- 
ness maxim is, "One thing at a time," which 
is practically the same thing in other words 
as the title of this chapter. Lipton's enter- 
prises now employ nearly 35,000 men, the 
greatest pay roll in existence. Lipton de- 
serves to be known more for the work of com- 
mercial education he has done than for the 
money he has made, or for the international 
sport he has popularized. 

We all know the fellow who drifts with the 
tide. He has no rule for buying and has no 
particular system for doing business. He gen- 
erally carries a large stock, surely so if his 
business is good. If business continues good 
he succeeds, but when it is bad he is one of 
the first to go under unless he has had a long 
season of successful trade and big profits. 

One of the very best aims a paper jobber 
can have is an aim to reach a point in his 
affairs when he can discount all his bills. He 
will take lots of comfort in planning for it. 
It is not only the two per cent which he saves 
but the fact that he pays cash gives him a 
chance to secure many a good bargain. Most 
men desire to buy for cash, but this is very 



PAPER SELLING. 93 

different than making it a positive aim and 
determination to "get there." The earnest 
man who has this for his object will know ex- 
actly how much he is making each month. He 
will calculate ahead when it comes to buying 
and figure closely to have enough stock to 
supply his trade and yet have no heavy over- 
stock. In short, he will work and plan with 
the supreme aim in view of becoming a cash 
buyer. This is a more laudable aim that 
merely to set out to become rich. Steadfast- 
ness is better than genius, for it is a quality 
that always gives one a keen sense of comfort 
as a result of doing well his duty. No man 
man be steadfast unless he have a clearly de- 
fined aim and abundant will power. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



CHAPTER XX. 

STRICTLY PRIVATE. 

There are several minor things which often 
militate against a man's business success. It 
frequently happens that an employe who has 
been mindful of a good personal appearance 
becomes lax in this matter and even slouchy 
in dress after he is a proprietor. There are 
some plausible reasons for this undesirable 
change of habit, but the fact remains that no 
man with any proper self respect will long be 
guilty of such carelessness when he once 
realizes the situation. He can't afford to be 
slovenly from a business standpoint and espe- 
cially because of the demoralizing effect upon 
himself. An observing student of mankind 
once remarked that the lack of a necktie was 
an index of a man's lack of some necessary 
business quality, and to beware of the man 
who habitually went collarless. The differ- 
ence between extreme conventionality and a 



PAPER SELLING. 95 

boorish neglect of the decencies of civilized 
living is a wide one. 

Shakespeare talks about the wisdom of dress- 
ing well and Carlyle's work on clothes con- 
tains more practical logic than can be summed 
up in tons of advice. That every business 
man should dress as well as his purse will 
permit is a platitude. The trouble is that 
many merchants don't know just what their 
purses will permit, as they are frequently in 
debt. Within certain limits a man should 
dress well even when in debt, as a means to 
more quickly get out of it. As the world goes, 
the prosperous man is the one who always 
get the plums. Nothing succeeds like suc- 
cess. To him that hath shall be given. These 
old sayings are to-day more true than ever. If 
a man carries about with him any of the evi- 
dences of need or poverty it is generally at- 
tributed to his own deficiencies, unjust as 
may often be that conclusion. 

To be well dressed is always good adver- 
tising. Prosperous business men will asso- 
ciate themselves with those only who dress 
neatly, are clean of person, habits and conver- 
sation, because these are the outward evi- 
dences of a good moral character. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



If one is poorly dressed he feels at odds 
with the world, that good fortune is not play- 
ing into his hands, that he cannot feel on the 
same level with other men so that he may 
look them squarely in the face as their equal. 

There is a sense of inferiority which makes 
him feel that he is at a disadvantage; there 
is a feeling of degradation which pulls him 
down to his, depressed estimate of himself and 
in turn these impressions are communicated 
to those with whom he meets and they gauge 
him no higher than he esteems himself. They 
rightly, perhaps, accept him at his own esti- 
mate. Buyers often judge the quality of a 
salesman's goods by his poorest sample. It is 
only human nature to consider that a man is 
no better than he himself grades his per- 
sonality. Let the long-haired men of genius, 
the visionary inventors, dress and look as they 
will, no sane business man in this twentieth 
century can afford for a little minute to be in- 
different to personal appearance. You should 
always look as if you and the world were 
on pretty fair terms. 

The owner must needs choose for himself 
the work that will most count in results. Rus- 



PAPER SELLING. 97 

kin tells us that there are three tests of wise 
work: ''It must be honest, useful, cheerful." 

It is wise to be honest, for that is a 
necessity. 

It is wise to be useful, for that is your aim 
in business. 

It is wise to be cheerful, for that is a friend- 
maker and likewise conduces to your imme- 
diate comfort. A wonderful gift is poise — the 
ability to remain calm, to keep your head in an 
emergency. It is a gift, yet a working amount 
of it can be cultivated by the careful pro- 
prietor. To have this quality is a proof of 
leadership. To keep a steady grip upon the 
key of the situation, to guide all aright, to 
check all confusion ; when you can do this you 
are nearing the goal of business victory. The 
man who becomes rattled will throw into 
stampede the best regulated business in the 
world. There can be no real accomplishment 
without a certain calm regularity of method 
and management. If you are restless and fit- 
ful by nature set yourself seriously to the task 
of acquiring poise. The giving of more of 
your time to the right kind of reading will 
prove an excellent aid to improvement of any 
inherent disposition to nervousness. 



HELPS TO PROFITABLE 



Do not forget that your clerks are watch- 
ing you just as carefully as you are watch- 
ing them. If you are careless or negligent in 
any way, your example will go a great way 
toward making them the same. If they see 
that you are discourteous to customers they 
will follow suit. If you are in the habit of 
observing irregular hours in your work in the 
store, they will avail themselves of the same 
privilege. If you violate any principles of 
business ethics they will soon do likewise. Of 
course all of this is wrong on their part, but 
it is human nature, and you will find it easier 
to reform your habits than to reform theirs 
first. If you are careful, courteous and punc- 
tual, your employes will be influenced by it 
far more than you may imagine. 



PAPER SELLING. 



CHAPTER XXL 

PATIENCE, PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY. 

Patience is a virtue not easily cultivated in 
these strenuous days of business competition. 
In the abstract we subscribe to the proverb : 
"All things come to him who waits." 

The combination of industry with patient 
waiting is indicative of that poise of mind 
usually found in the really great men of the 
earth. The man who calmly pins his faith in 
an Almighty power, has confidence in himself 
and persistently works toward a definite end, 
never fails in the real meaning of that over- 
worked word. Trials and adversities will 
surely come, but the man of patience, poise 
and persistence uses them as strengthened for 
other battles and a needed upbuilding of char- 
acter. A good character cannot be perma- 
nently destroyed ; it is capital of a kind which 
draws interest and pays dividends regardless 
of all calamities. 

L.ofC. 



100 HELPS TO PROFITABLE 

Progress in business will come to any man 
who will pay the price. It means to put his 
whole heart and soul into his work. It is not 
the giving of one's sole time to hard labor, 
either of hand or brain. You should have a 
room at home where you can have privacy to 
conscientiously indulge in a little self-study. 
This must be real and thorough, and time 
should be set aside for it with a will power 
that is immovable. Self -study has for many a 
man forestalled certain failure and put him on 
the road to success. Stop, look and listen to 
the workings of your own human engine. Take 
stock of your mental advantages and weak- 
nesses, then apply all your will-power to 
strengthen the weak and suppress the strong. 
Add to this, good stimulating reading about 
successful business men and methods. Do both 
these things in addition to your duties at 
store and office, and then progress will have 
already begun within you, the man. 

Prosperity, what is it? It surely is not 
represented by dollars alone. To some men 
prosperity means commanding social or busi- 
ness standing. 

Ideals are slowly changing. The man who 
has secured an income sufficient to support 



PAPER SELLING. 



his family and knows that it cannot be lost by 
change of circumstances, who owes no man 
anything and is at peace with God and man, 
surely he has attained prosperity. 



